Payback in Paxton Park, page 14
part #4 of Paxton Park Mystery Series
Justice lifted her head and released a shrill howl that caused Shelly to jump.
“How about a little warning before you do that,” Shelly said.
The cat leapt onto the floor and paced in front of the fire while Shelly watched her go back and forth. “I feel like I’m watching a tennis match.”
Justice stopped in her tracks and stared at the young woman for several moments, then she darted to the side table in front of the window, pushed the drape back with her paw, and sat there watching the road.
“Are you expecting someone?” Shelly laughed and then caught herself in mid-chuckle, her face becoming serious. Getting up and crossing the room, she bent a little to look outside through the window’s frosty glass. The street was empty. Snowflakes fell softly and sparkled as they drifted down in the shaft of golden light from the streetlamp.
Turning away from the window, she told the cat, “It’s all quiet outside. You don’t need to keep watch.”
The cat growled low in her throat just as a car’s headlights swept the house as it turned into Shelly’s driveway.
Goosebumps formed over the young woman’s skin when she heard the car door slam and heavy footprints come up the porch steps. When the doorbell rang, Shelly peered through the door’s peephole to see the barn’s manager, Troy Broadmoor, standing under the porch light.
When Shelly opened the door, Troy shifted from foot to foot and asked if he could come in.
Shelly hesitated, but when Troy told her he had something important to share, she swung the door wide to admit the man.
“I’m sorry to barge in like this. I need to talk to you.” Troy shook the snowflakes from his jacket, removed the coat, and handed it to Shelly.
Troy’s face was colorless and his breathing seemed quick and shallow. He looked around the room, but didn’t seem to be taking anything in. A sheen of sweat covered his forehead.
Shelly gestured for Troy to take a seat and then she sat on the sofa being careful to sit nearest the side table that had a little drawer in it where Shelly kept a small canister of pepper spray. Justice sat next to her owner, her eyes glued on the visitor.
“It’s okay. I don’t mind you stopping by. What would you like to talk about?” Shelly wondered if Troy was close to a breakdown and if his wife knew where he was. “Where’s Roberta? Does she know you went out?”
“Roberta’s fine. She’s at home.” Troy picked at the cuticle of his index finger.
“What would you like to tell me?” Shelly asked using a kind voice.
Troy lifted his eyes as if he were seeing Shelly for the first time. “I wanted to tell you something. I don’t know if I should tell the police.”
“Go ahead. It’s okay to tell me.” Adrenaline coursed through Shelly’s veins.
“I saw something,” Troy said in a whisper.
Shelly waited for the man to continue.
“I saw something that morning.”
“The morning of the robbery?” Shelly asked.
“I was late. I slept late. I know people think I’m lying about that, but it’s the honest truth.”
Shelly nodded encouragingly.
“I went inside. Shannon was out. She wasn’t feeling well. I had an email message from her, but I didn’t see it until later.” Troy clasped and unclasped his hands. “The place was so quiet. There was something almost eerie about it. It scared me.” The man looked at Shelly. “I looked around as I walked back to my office. Something seemed off. I heard something … maybe like the scuff of a shoe. I turned down the hall and saw the backdoor bang shut. It opened and shut in the wind. Bang, bang. The latch hadn’t caught. I noticed the hallway floor was wet. Something. Something made me hurry to the door. I looked out the small window.”
Troy stared at Shelly, blinking.
Justice sat as still as a statue.
“What did you see?” With her heart pounding, Shelly asked the question as softly as she could, not wanting to break Troy out of his story.
“A man. He was running towards the woods.”
“Do you know who he was?”
“I could only see his back. He was carrying something in one hand. It was black.”
“What was it? Could you see what it was?” Shelly had a pretty good idea what it might have been.
“It looked like a lunchbox.”
“What happened next?”
“The wind caught the door again. It swung open and then slammed in my face. The noise of it made me whirl around. My office door was partially closed. When I hurried to the backdoor, I couldn’t see inside the office, but from my position near the rear door, I could see. I could see a foot. A shoe. I walked closer.” Troy’s eyes filled up. “That’s when I found them.”
Justice released a low growl.
“The person running away from the barn … did you recognize him?” Shelly asked.
“I didn’t. But he had on a jacket like mine. The one I got from my brother-in-law.”
“What color was the jacket?”
“Black. It looked black.”
“Did the person remind you of anyone?” Shelly asked.
Troy’s face looked like it was going to crumple.
“It’s okay,” Shelly told the man.
“It sort of looked like one of those police officers. You know those two who are related?”
“The Waltons?” Shelly’s heart was practically in her throat.
“Yes. Them.”
“Have you told anyone this?” Shelly questioned.
“I didn’t tell anyone, not even Roberta. I was afraid.” Troy leaned forward and whispered. “If it was a cop, well, I was afraid of what he might do to me if I said I saw him at the crime scene.”
“So I’m the only one you’ve told this to?”
“Yes. Except I saw Emmy at the store today.”
Shelly’s stopped breathing for a second. “Emmy? Grant’s wife?”
“I told her she’d better look out for those cop cousins.” Troy nodded vigorously.
Justice let out a mighty howl and raced to the window.
“Is someone coming?” Troy asked with a touch of fear in his voice.
Shelly went to the window. This time a car parked behind Troy’s vehicle and Andrew Walton got out of his car.
Shelly grabbed her jacket. “I’m going outside for a few minutes. Don’t come out. Stay here. Stay inside the house. Do you understand, Troy?”
“Yes.”
Shelly stepped onto the porch and slammed the door behind her, suspicious of the man who had parked in her driveway. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
Andrew went around to the back of his car. “I need to talk to you. Jay is out of town. I need to show you something.”
Shelly’s heart raced. She didn’t trust him. “Not now. It isn’t a good time.”
“Can I come in?” Andrew asked. “Could you keep some things here for me for a little while?”
“No. I’m expecting Jack,” Shelly lied. She could hear the cat howling and shrieking inside the house and it sent a shot of fear through her body.
“I’ll only take a few seconds. I need to show you something,” Andrew said. “It’s important. Can you keep it here for me?” Just as Andrew opened the back door of the car and leaned in to retrieve something from the seat, a car raced down the street with its passenger side window open.
Inside the house, Justice knocked the lamp off the side table causing a mighty crash.
Shelly could see a shadow inside the vehicle and her instinct told her to drop. She fell to the porch as something flashed red and a roar came from the car that screeched to a halt in front of her house.
“Andrew!” Shelly screamed.
Andrew stood up and turned as his cousin, Porter, got of his car and stood next to the driver’s side.
“You broke into my house,” Porter screeched at Andrew. “Those things don’t belong to me. You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re aren’t going to pin this on me. You can’t prove anything.”
On her hands and knees, Shelly peeked through the slats of the porch railing and saw Andrew moving his hand slowly towards his gun.
Porter took aim, but Andrew was faster and he shot his cousin through the open front windows of the man’s car.
Porter fell.
As Andrew dashed to him, he yelled to Shelly. “Call 911.”
Shelly opened the front door and raced inside to get her phone. She punched the numbers into the phone as she grabbed a blanket and ran back outside.
Justice was already out and standing guard beside Andrew who knelt next to his bleeding cousin, tears streaming down his face. “Porter. Why? Why did you do it?”
Shelly and Andrew used the blanket to try and stay the unconscious man’s bleeding and sat together on the snowy sidewalk until the ambulance finally arrived.
25
“Porter will survive his injury,” Jay sat behind the old desk in her office giving Shelly and Juliet an update on the case. “Andrew suspected his cousin of wrong doing, but he didn’t want to accuse a fellow police officer until he had more evidence. Andrew entered his cousin’s apartment, invited I might add, and found Grant’s lunchbox and the jacket Porter used during the crime. The jacket had a missing button. Grant and Benny must have fought Porter in the office and the button was pulled off in the fight.”
“Will the jacket and the lunchbox be admissible in court?” Shelly asked. “Andrew didn’t have a search warrant to look for those things.”
Jay said, “Porter asked Andrew to pick up his wallet from the apartment. Andrew entered the bedroom to get the wallet from the dresser. The closet was open and Andrew spotted the lunchbox stuffed in the back behind a bunch of shoes. He didn’t have to touch anything to see it. The Winter Wings jacket was in the closet, too. He photographed the closet and removed the items for evidence.” Jay continued. “Andrew knew I was away from town for the day. He didn’t want to leave the lunchbox and jacket at the police station without first talking to me about them.”
“Andrew told me he wanted to drop the things off at Juliet’s house, but she wasn’t at home,” Shelly said. “So he was going to ask me if he could leave the items with me until you arrived home.”
“That’s right,” Jay said. “The jacket’s fibers are consistent with those taken from under Grant’s fingernails and the lunchbox in Porter’s closet belonged to Grant.”
“Why take the man’s lunchbox?” Juliet asked.
With a sigh, Jay leaned back in her chair. “As you know, Grant and Porter attended the same high school. There was quite a bit of hostility, anger, and resentment between the men. It infuriated Grant that Porter was a police officer. He and Porter had sold drugs together during the last two years of high school. According to his wife, Grant said Porter stole his profits from their business and pushed him out. Porter continued to sell even to this day and reported to us that Grant threatened to expose him as a drug dealer. Porter offered to bring him into the business, but it was a lie. Porter received information about the money in the barn’s safe from Grant and promised him half of it for providing details about the easiest and safest time to hit the office. To show good faith, Porter promised to put fifteen thousand dollars into Grant’s lunchbox on the morning of the robbery.”
“That’s how Porter had Grant’s lunchbox in his apartment,” Juliet said.
“Porter never planned to give Grant half the money because he wasn’t going to steal the safe. He made up the whole thing to set up Grant,” Jay said. “Porter was sick of him and his threat to expose his drug business. He decided to finish Grant off and to get him out of his life once and for all. Benny was killed because he was with Grant.”
“What a terrible mess,” Shelly shook her head sadly.
Jay said, “After he killed Grant and Benny, we assume Porter went to the refrigerator, grabbed Grant’s lunchbox that he’d put the fifteen thousand dollars in, and replaced it with a similar one … the thinking being that suspicion would fall on Grant if things were out of the ordinary. Grant brought his lunchbox to work every single day. If Grant was suspected of involvement in the robbery, Porter was sure things would eventually be traced back to him. This is what we’ve pieced together from talking to Grant’s wife, Emmy.”
“She obviously knew what Grant was up to,” Shelly said. “Emmy was expecting the money from the robbery so she went on a spending spree and bought all that high-end merchandise I found in her kitchen closet.”
Jay added, “Emmy told us Grant said it was payback time for Porter for having cheated him out of all those profits in high school. Grant planned to keep up his threats to expose Porter’s illegal activities until he’d made plenty of money off the guy. Grant told Emmy he wasn’t going to get conned by Porter ever again. Porter threatened Emmy to stay quiet about what she thought had happened or she’d end up just like Grant.”
“Grant should have left it alone,” Juliet said.
“But if he did, Porter may never have been exposed,” Shelly pointed out. “Andrew must be very upset about his cousin.”
“He is,” Jay said. “Andrew’s been through some tough experiences as a law enforcement officer. He’s resilient though. He’ll make it through this, too. We all need to give him our support.”
“Why was Andrew’s name and number on the pad at Emmy’s house?” Juliet asked.
“Andrew had gone to the house to talk to Emmy again,” Jay said. “He questioned her about Grant’s and Porter’s relationship. He asked her to please contact him if anything came up.”
“My dreams didn’t help us very much this time,” Shelly pondered out loud.
“Yes, they did,” Juliet said. “They pointed to things that weren’t what they seemed. Porter is exactly what the dreams suggested. He was not what he seemed to be.”
“I guess I need to work on interpreting the dreams better,” Shelly said.
“This is all new territory for you,” Jay said, “and for us. We’ll get better at it. I’m grateful for your help.”
Shelly and Jack snuggled on the sofa watching a movie with a fire crackling in the fireplace and a few candles shimmering on the coffee table. Justice had pushed in between the two people and was now snoozing soundly on her back with her paws in the air.
“This cat makes me want to fall asleep,” Jack said smiling down at the feline.
Shelly chuckled. “Justice makes a nap look like the best thing in the whole world.”
Jack put his arm around Shelly’s shoulders being careful not to squish the cat. “I’m glad this case has been solved. You were a big help to Jay.”
“I don’t really think I was this time.” Shelly held her boyfriend’s hand. “Andrew was the one who figured it out. Juliet and I were concerned that Andrew was the killer. I need to learn to pay better attention to things. I need to learn to pull truth from the jumble in my head.” With a smile, she said, “I think Justice knew who the killer was all along. She was acting oddly just before Andrew showed up here. Troy told me Justice was going crazy when I went out to the porch. She was howling and trying to climb the drapes. I think she knew Porter was on his way and she knew he was bad.”
“I certainly won’t deny this cat knows things.” Jack reached down and petted the sleeping animal. “I think she’s something special.” Leaning forward, he gave Shelly a loving kiss. “Just like the woman she lives with.”
They watched the movie for another ten minutes and when Shelly swallowed the last of her tea, Jack got up to pour her another cup. As he passed the window that faced the driveway next to Juliet’s house, headlights passed over the glass and shone into the room for a moment.
Jack bent a little to look outside.
“Did Juliet come home?” Shelly asked in a sleepy voice.
“Yes, she did.” Jack straightened and gave his girlfriend a grin. “You know how you told me earlier that you hoped Andrew was going to be okay?”
Shelly nodded.
“I think he’s going to be just fine,” Jack said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he and Juliet just got out of her car and headed into her house with a pizza.” Jack winked. “And they were holding hands.”
“Oh.” Shelly’s eyebrows went up and a wide smile spread over her face as the sweet Calico cat opened one eye and purred her approval.
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Also By J.A. Whiting
OLIVIA MILLER MYSTERIES
SWEET COVE COZY MYSTERIES
LIN COFFIN COZY MYSTERIES
CLAIRE ROLLINS COZY MYSTERIES
PAXTON PARK COZY MYSTERIES
About the Author
J.A. Whiting lives with her family in Massachusetts. Whiting loves reading and writing mystery and suspense stories.
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J A Whiting, Payback in Paxton Park
